Blood of Fire
by megstiell
Summary: One glass cage, one master assassin, one Norse God and a whole lot of blood. Loki was never going to make this easy, was he? My darker, more disturbing take on the Loki/Black Widow scene in the Avengers. Rated M for bloody, gory descriptions, just to be safe.


_I loved the scene between Black Widow and Loki, and so this is my version! ehehehehe, enjoy. you can find me on tumbr at khaleesi-of-jotunheim._

_I don't own these characters, nor did I write the actual dialogue - you can thank Joss Wheldon for that._

* * *

"There are not many people who can sneak up on me."

"But you figured I'd come."

When you are a God, there are many things you must master. For Loki, flattery was apparently one of them.

Natasha was not impressed.

"After. After whatever tortures Fury can concede, you would appear as a friend, as a balm, and I-" Loki flashed one of his most charming, winning smiles. "-would co-operate."

_A friend? Who does he think I am? Get back to business, Romanoff._ She crossed her arms over her chest.

"I wanna know what you've done to Agent Barton."

"I'd say I've expanded his mind!"

"And once you've won, once you're King of the mountain, what happens to his mind?" However much she tried to hide it, Natasha cared about Clint. She was prepared to do anything if it would mean the guarantee of his safety.

The bastard Loki laughed. Natasha was not easy to read at the best of times, but her could read her like a map. _I'll rip your throat out._

"Is this love, Agent Romanoff?"

_Even I cannot answer that. Lie to him, goddamn it, lie._

"Love is for children. I owe him a debt."

The God slowly took several steps backwards before lowering himself down onto the prison's seat.

"Tell me." His voice was soft, gentle even, and Natasha found herself surprised. Yet a hint of mischief was plastered upon his pale face, giving Natasha cause for caution. _He's playing with you, Romanoff. He's a God. But you can't hide your past._

She hesitated, and sat down before she began her story.

"Before I worked for SHIELD, I, uh... well, I made a name for myself. I have a very specific skill set. I didn't care who I used it for, or on. I got on SHIELD's radar in a bad way. Agent Barton was sent to kill me, he made a different call." For that, Natasha owed him her life. Literally.

_Why are you telling him this?_

Loki had been silently regarding her throughout her tale. When she finished, he spoke up lightly.

"And what will you do if I vow to spare him?

"Not let you out."

"Oh no, but I _like_ this."

As quick as a blink, as slick as a fox, he transformed from handsome, charming Loki to the Loki that liked to live up to his title.

"Your world in the balance and you bargain for one man?"

The scene was quite a picture. Even locked up, in a virtually unbreakable glass cage built for a man a lot stronger than he, the Chaos Gods inflated ego still managed to cause inexplicit torment.

Natasha was barely coping as it was. Her instincts never failed her, and at present they were yelling, screaming at her to run; to turn and run and never come back.

There isn't much that scares Natasha Romanoff. But there she was, sitting face to face with a living legend, openly having a conversation with a God.

And she was fucking terrified.

He certainly looked like a God. Ridiculously blue eyes of seductive proportions, combined with chiselled cheekbones and a waterfall of black hair surrounding his pale face made Loki more like the God of Sex than the God of Mischief. Yet Natasha knew who he was, what he had done, and she was going to unveil what he planned to do – to her, that made him a monster.

_A monster. Who are you to speak?_ Natasha quickly pushed the thought out of her head and set her face into a black, hard mask before refocusing on the situation in front of her.

"Regimes fall every day. I tend not to weep over that, I'm Russian... or was."

Loki sat back for a second, studying her intently. "And what are you now?"

"It's really not that complicated. I've got red in my ledger, I'd like to wipe it out." Well, wasn't that the truth. She stood up. Closing her eyes, Natasha inwardly reeled as a wave of pain, guilt and horror washed over, drowning in her own emotions. You could pretend to be as strong as you wanted - emotion always won in the end.

"Can you? Can you wipe out that much red?"

His voice instantly yanked Natasha out of her sea of emotions. She snapped her eyes open, furious at herself for letting down her guard even just for a moment.

Chaos awaited her with vicious intent, and Loki was now not alone.

Nothing could have prepared her for the scene Loki had prepared specially for her. Waves of nausea rose over Natasha, burning, red-hot bile rising from her stomach and scorching her throat whilst her legs turned to jelly and almost gave way beneath her. She choked out just one word..._"No_"...

"Dreykov's daughter?"

A young Slovakian woman stood beside Loki. Her rotting face was bloody and broken, legs snapped, with her neck twisted at an unnatural angle. Blood poured from her ripped mouth, pooling at her decaying feet and her the hollow sockets where her eyes once were placed. Dreykov's daughter wasn't as dead as Natasha had last seen her.

"Sao Paulo?"

The condition of these four men were no better than the last. Smashed-in skulls accompanied dozens of bullet wounds scattered around torsos, limbs, faces. The crimson blood had began to flood the cage; an endless torrent of death and fire.

"The hospital fire?"

And then came the burned.

These were different from the rest. They were barely recognisable as human, black and flaking and screaming as they stumbled forwards inside the crammed cage, singing the song of the dead. Even in this bone dry form, they bled sweet, rich blood and stared with eyes that had melted as easily as if they were wax. Natasha screamed as an eye popped and splattered inside the cage.

_What is dead can never die, and the night is full of terrors. _She had read that in a book somewhere.

Blood had now begun to leak out of the prison, seeping out from under the seals in its transparent glass. The glistening ruby liquid crept along the floor as easily as a snake, curling and swirling around until it reached Natasha on her knees, frozen and shaking amid the horror she had created. Sweat dripped from Natasha's clammy brow and mingled with the blood of those she had killed. She wanted to run and scream and never look back, run back into the safety of SHIELD, of Nick Fury and the Avengers, but she was frozen. Her body had failed her. _Please_.

Amid the bloody scene stood Loki, untouched by the blood, pristine as ever. He was smirking, and in that moment Natasha knew she hated him, _hated_ him, with every fibre of her being. Wanting him dead wasn't enough. She _had_ to get her hands around him, grab that stark white neck of his with both hands and just _squeeze_ the life out of him, until his eyes rolled back into his head and his lips turned blue, her nails digging into his windpipe until his blood ran in vast waterfalls down her hands and he dropped to his kneels, and Natasha would cradle Loki's head in her hands before snapping his neck, nice and slowly, savouring the way the bones cracked and the tendons snapped and the broken angle at which his neck lay…

Then, only then, she would be satisfied.

_Stop._ The sound of her own mental voice snapped her out of her river of venom.

_This isn't you. Loki is manipulating you. Master of magic, remember? What would Clint..._

"Barton told me everything. Your ledger is dripping, it's gushing red, and you think saving a man no more virtuous than yourself will change anything?" Standing up, he strode forward with an intimidating stance.

The monsterous scene that had been laid bare before her only seconds ago had vanished.

As if in response, some mystery force compelled Natasha to pull herself back onto her feet and look the Chaos God directly into his eyes. She felt her face pull itself into the familiar blank mask she so often wore; it was almost instinctual.

Loki's handsome face had twisted and contorted with a mixture of disgust and anger, positively spitting at the flame-haired assassin who had been reduced to a nervous wreck. Her current fragile state could take no more as she whimpered again. This monster knew exactly how to break her.

"This is the basest sentimentality. This is a child at prayer... PATHETIC!"

_You are already broken._

"You lie and kill in the service of liars and killers. You pretend to be separate, to have your own code, something that makes up for the horrors!" His saliva flew over the glass. "But they are a part of you."

_Dreykov's daughter. Sao Paulo. The hospital fire._

"And they will never go away."

Loki snarled as his fist flew into the glass of the cage, his eyes wild and psychotic and full of disgust, and Natasha jumped backwards. But the worst was yet to come.

"I won't touch Barton, not until I make him kill you! Slowly, intimately, in every way he knows you fear."

_Monster. Make it stop, please, he's a monster._ She couldn't face him anymore, not now, not ever. She turned away, and in that moment, Natasha knew in her heart she had never hated someone as much as she hated Loki.

He wasn't finished yet.

"And then he'll wake just long enough to see his good work, and when he screams, I'll split his skull! This is my bargain, you mewling quim!"

Black Widow, the infamous, almost legendary assassin with a waterfall of fire for hair, stood shaking, broken and beaten by the hands of a Trickster.

_Well. He certainly lives up to the stories of my childhood. _ She said the words she'd been wanting to say for a long time.

"You're a monster."

Laughing, the monster seemed to compose himself slightly.

"Oh no. You brought the monster."

_Hulk?_

That was enough. The logical her, the rational her, the her that everyone knew, _Natasha_, snapped into place. _You put the cat right in the bag there, Romanoff._

She spun round, face and body both clicked back into normality.

"So, Banner. That's your play."

That look, that look of genuine confusion, followed by disbelief and skeptism, was one Natasha was going to treasure forever.

"What?"

_Well, what d'ya know? _Natasha Romanoff strode with purpose towards the door. They would all be wanting to know what had happened back at head desk, Fury especially, and she would give them everything.

"Loki means to unleash the Hulk. Keep Banner in the lab, I'm on my way. Send Thor as well." Her headpiece buzzed in her ear as her colleagues rushed to do exactly what she instructed. She was Black Widow, after all.

_Oh. Wait. Where are your manners, Romanoff?_

Turning back to the Mischief God, Natasha dipped into a slight curtsey. Loki's face was priceless.

"Thank you for your co-operation."

Black Widow, the infamous, almost legendary assassin with a waterfall of fire for hair, had played the God, and won.


End file.
